Faint Praise: The Plight of Book Reviewing in America [Paperback]

Informed and informative, "Faint Praise: The Plight Of Book Reviewing In America" by Gail Pool (a freelance journalist, reviewer, and review editor based in Cambridge, Massachusetts) is an impressively insightful, deftly written, accessibly articulate, expertly knowledgeable, and decidedly analytical survey of the multifaceted and complex world of book reviewing today. Getting a book reviewed can result in prestige for authors and their publishers, improved sales, and a raised public awareness of a particular title struggling for attention against thousands of competing books. They can also bury worthy and literate titles in a sea of inane and flawed books that are published by the tens of thousands every month. "Faint Press" provides a descriptive and comprehensive introduction to the institution of book reviewing, including such issues as why bad reviewing happens despite good intentions, why so many intelligent bibliophiles, knowledgeable readers, and gifted authors can fail at the art, craft, science, and business of writing book reviews. "Faint Praise" takes the reader behind the scenes and shows how books are chosen for review, the context in which book reviewing takes place, including a book review culture that is shows little interest in literature, a surprising antipathy toward criticism, and a vulnerability to the 'seduction of praise'. It's a sad fact of contemporary publishing that reviews so often degenerate into unmerited hype. Very highly recommended for both academic and community library Literary Studies collections, "Faint Praise" should be considered mandatory reading for anyone aspiring to become a book reviewer, and is especially valuable reading for authors, publishers, academicians, and the general reading public.

"As any reviewer knows, whatever one critic says is likely to set another's teeth on edge, the war between writers and reviewers is never ending, and critics are likely to be reviled for what they do, however well or badly they do it." ~ pg. 3

"Faint Praise" is an intellectual look at the realities of book reviewing. Since there are so few books on the subject of reviewing this is a welcome read. Gail Pool truly presents an insider's view because she is a reviewer and an editor. Therefore she sees the big picture and accurately presents an assessment of current reviewing predicaments.

While I was very interested in reading what she had to say about professional reviewers, I was even more intrigued by what she thought about Amazon reviewers. Since this book was published in 2007 Amazon has changed quite a few site features. We no longer have to worry about anonymous reviews (authors now frequently just review their books publicly without shame even though it makes them look bad) and both positive and negative reviews are often featured in the most helpful reviews section.

One of the most interesting topics of discussion was the differentiation between various types of reviewers. By reading this book you can find out if you are a literary critic, book critic, classic book reviewer or reader-reviewer.

One of the questions I've had about publishers was answered in this book. Apparently it is quite common for some publishers to send you a catalog of books to review and then to not send you the books you select. Apparently this is one of the "long-standing mysteries in reviewing."

If you are curious as to what goes on in an editor's mind when selecting books for review the answers will be very revealing. Their job is far more complex than I could have ever imagined. This book gave me a new respect for all reviewers and editors who get paid so little for so much intellectual effort.

I can recommend this book to Amazon reviewers and professional reviewer who are concerned about the state of reviewing in our society today. I think online reviews will continue to be highly popular as they are free and easy to locate within minutes.

"The reviewer who praises will never be out of work. American reviewers who are persistently critical will find that they're writing against the cultural grain. Ours is a culture that generally doesn't welcome criticism..." ~ pg. 106

~The Rebecca Review

Too bad the joke about reviewing a book about reviewing books is already taken, so those professional reviewers (at Publisher's Weekly, see above) really do have an edge over us amateurs. Gail Pool can thus rest assured that the market for her services, which she sees as endangered, will not be diluted to the point of total dilettantism, as I sensed from her slight animosity towards online reviewers who can afford to do it for free (I, in particular, take exception and offense to her statement that reviews spare in numbers are "probably" placed by the author's friends).

Aside from occasional pokes, however, it would be unfair to call Pool's plight a rant, since she does give good reasons for her concerns. It was about time someone who knows what they're doing spoke up about the caprices of the media machine that make and break careers, in this case inflationary, over-the-top, often misinformed book reviews, and, at the heart of it, the schemes that get an author reviewing space in the first place.

Fortunately, she does not leave it at that, but also offers viable guidelines and approaches that might very well serve the overall quality of literature, if not the book industry, which appears to be the underlying problem. Since, presumably, Pool is too experienced to bear any illusions that she is stronger than the system, the most valuable message of "Faint Praise" has universal appeal: be independent-minded if you can, do not take the path of least resistance by becoming just another particle of mass culture, and read, read, read--carefully.